A vehicle is provided with a tachometer for indicating the number of rotations of an engine, and a driver can recognize the number of rotations of the engine by checking the display of the tachometer. A tachometer is generally controlled on the basis of signals from a sensor that detects the actual number of rotations of the engine. For example, the value of the actual number of rotations of the engine or a value corrected by eliminating a minute fluctuation from the actual number of rotations is displayed on the tachometer. A technique is proposed which provides a tachometer display expected by a driver when an automatic transmission is shifted, by displaying, on the tachometer, a virtual number of rotations independent of the actual number of rotations of the engine upon the shift change (e.g., refer to Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 2015-161654).
In a vehicle having an automatic transmission including a continuously variable transmission that steplessly varies the rotation speed of an engine and a torque converter, however, the actual number of rotations of the engine varies in accordance with a change in the pulley ratio upon a shift change. Therefore, when the driver has an acceleration intention, the response of the display of the tachometer (e.g., the movement of the needle) may be delayed as compared to the response of a tachometer of a manual transmission or a stepped automatic transmission and thus the driver may not be able to have a satisfactory visually-sensible acceleration feeling.